


Born to Run, a side story, or: Sad Eyes, a tale of two brothers

by dollylux



Series: Born to Run [6]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 11:31:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1777498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/pseuds/dollylux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is important about Nando. And it hurt to write. If you're reading this series, please read this. It just. It feels important.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Born to Run, a side story, or: Sad Eyes, a tale of two brothers

"Pick one."

Fernando shakes his head violently, not in a childish way, but in a terrified one. His fingers are fluttering on his bare thighs like birds and David feels his own fingers twitch at his sides. David is fourteen now and strong for his age. But he never got to be stronger than his Daddy, so he stayed put.

"Nando, goddamnit, boy. I said pick one. Don't make me tell you again."

"Please, Daddy. I said I was sorry."

Their father lowers his head in what looks like patience but Fernando knows better. And so does David. Fernando's eyes flash over the two options on the coffee table between them, the soft, worn belt and the ancient ball bat. Tears are already streaming down Fernando's face but it's fear, not petulance, that drives them there.

"One."

"Daddy, no."

"Two."

"Dad, please. He didn't mean to. You know he's got heavy hands. He always slams that door."

"You stay out of this, David. Ain't none of your damn business."

David grits his teeth and looks over at Fernando again, trying to do some quick calculations in his head. He could possibly pick him up and run with him out the door, but their father is within easy reach of both the bat and the belt. And his shotgun, while David is thinking about it.

"Don't make me pick for you, boy."

Fernando sobs and David steps forward and as soon as he gets his fingers around Fernando's thin wrists, their father is up like a shot and he feels a sharp, solid blast against his ear and he goes deaf for a moment. He tumbles backwards though he's being helped by his father and he can hear Fernando's screams, his pleas and he knows that he shouts at Fernando to run, goddamnit, you idiot, run now but Fernando's warm, trembling fingers are on him and then he's being shoved into the closet, that fucking closet and he hears the wooden plank being slid into place. He had spent so many hours, days of his life in this closet and the smell of it, just the smell of it, sends him into a panic.

"Daddy, don't you hurt him! Don't hurt him! Please." David bangs on the door and kicks at it but it's no use, it's solid wood now and it's got enough devices and re-enforcements on it to keep him in here until he's an adult, if that's what his father so chooses. He knows that he's turned his father from mad to furious and Fernando is alone out there to take punishment for it. He hears the roll of the baseball bat sliding from the plywood coffee table and he crouches down, shoving his forehead against the door and letting out a despairing, painful sob.

Fernando has never learned to mask his fear or his pain. He lets out every single scream, every single sob and tear and yelp because if he doesn't, they will tear him into pieces. He has never learned to just lay there and take it, he always fights, he always tries to get out of it, always thinks there's a way, there's just gotta be a _way_ out of this. And while he has his arms pinned to the wall and while his lower body is being pummeled with slam after slam of the solid ash wood against his tender skin, broken skin and bruised skin and bleeding skin and freckled skin, he can't help but think that he wishes he were more like his brother, that he could just learn to take it all in, to keep it all inside and stay quiet and just take his punishments, that he could be more of a man. But, at the age of nine, Fernando doesn't know the first thing about being a man. And he certainly isn't learning any lessons today.

It's dark by the time their father leaves. David doesn't miss a single sound, doesn't miss a single connection of wood or skin or bone against Fernando's body (thirty-two), doesn't miss his father's curses at him, the lies he feeds Fernando that David hopes, more than the violence, Fernando never absorbs. He waits until his father's truck is long gone down the road and he presses his hands to the wood and finds that they're still shaking.

"Nando?"

Silence.

David tries to shove the door open but it's futile, as it always is. He rap his knuckles sharply against the wood and he hears Fernando gasp, hears him stir. His chest aches for frightening him even more so he raises his voice as gently as he can.

"Darlin, it's me. I'm in here. Let me out? Please?"

"I can't, Davey. I can't move."

"Please try? I promise I'll take care of you. I promise you, honey. Just help me get out of here and we'll leave for tonight. Okay?"

He can tell by the sounds Fernando is making that he's nodding to himself, that he's trying to push himself up and that he's crying but trying so hard not to. He hears him stand up, his slow progression across the room. He hears small hands pushing at heavy wood and Fernando gasps again when it falls to the ground. David shoves at the door until it opens and he reaches for Fernando immediately, gathering him gingerly but wholly to himself. Fernando wraps his arms around David's neck and just cries. David tucks him up against himself into a fireman's carry and he starts across the livingroom again, looking down in the failing light to make sure not to trip on anything and he sees a stark white piece of paper with Fernando's name scrawled at the top and recognizes it as the one thing Fernando had been holding when he had burst through the door earlier, the noise and commotion that had woken his father and started this whole mess. There on the paper, above the scratch of careful letters and numbers on inked black lines, is a proud, red letter A.


End file.
